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Friday, March 12, 2010

Deadlock and Hot Spot in Real Life (Police Report)

Being a database guy and lecturer, it is always nice to see how easy it is to explain database terms with real life analogies. Today's feature is "deadlock" and "hot spot". The situation is taken from this police report (look for "Unglaublich aber wahr" from March 9th, it's in German):

In English: A 88 year old woman went outside to the trash bin forgetting the keys and the door fell shut. Eventually, the police was called and together they figured that the daughter had the only spare key. Police went to the daughter's house and while the police talked with the daughter outside the house the door felt shut. The only spare key was in her mother's house (the 88 year old woman). So they came up with the plan to order a locksmith to the mother's house and meet there. However, to make it more interesting, after some time the daughter remembered that the lunch was still cooking on the stove and, thus, the fire department was called in (fortunately nothing was damaged). Lunch was also on the old woman's stove (no damage here, again).

We see: Mutual dependencies create a deadlock in this situation. Depending on what resources are involved, hot spots can be created. And as usual: Don't blame the DBA.

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About Me

#DB2, #BigData, #Cloud, #IBMer, Life in IT, Teacher at University, lived 7 years in California, now Friedrichshafen, Germany
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All articles reflect my personal view only and are based upon my current knowledge and my own personal experiences. You should conduct independent tests to verify the validity of any statements made in this blog before basing any decisions upon those statements. In addition, any views or opinions expressed by visitors to this blog are theirs and do not necessarily reflect mine.
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Reach Henrik at henrik.loeser (at) gmail.com